Epithalamium
by Penthesilea
Summary: Twenty years after A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hermia reflects on Hippolytus' funeral.


Epithalamion  
  
The flames rise into the night, like petals enveloping the young man's corpse. He was only nineteen, the same age as my son. My son, his closest friend.  
  
Who, on that night twenty years ago, would have thought this would happen to us? There were six of us then: the Duke and Hippolyta, Demetrius and Helena, and my Lysander and me. I remember the look on the mens' face when they woke up next us in the woods. The look that said so plainly that they would love us until the end of time. The look that said that the future was beautiful as long as we were there. Look what the future brought us.  
  
I remember the hunting party standing over us. Theseus, trying to hide his amusement behind a mask of discipline and sternness. Hippolyta, the beautiful Amazon, with the sun on her hair making her look like Queen Titania herself. My father, barely able to keep his mouth shut when he saw Lysander and me together, and then practically exploding when he saw Demetrius and Helena. And then Theseus said those magic words which set us free. I think he liked us before, but never knew how to help us.  
  
There is no question in my mind that Theseus and Hippolyta were a match made by the gods. Their love was against so many obstacles, war, enmity and violence, and yet they loved one another so deeply. It was beautiful, and it gave us hope.  
  
That night, our wedding night, we each conceived a child. A son for every couple: Danaius, Hippolytus and our Sylvius. All three were born on the same day. Tell me if that's not supernatural. I believe that someone, either the gods or the fairies, blessed us that night, gave us the gift of children.  
  
The infants grew into children, and often refused to leave one another's sight during the day. They were joined by my daughter Helena two years later. Those children were our pride and our joy. Our hope for the future.  
  
Yet through the years of our marriages, the love never faded. Demetrius and Helena were the least restrained in public, but the court was lit up by the quiet passion of the Duke and Duchess. As for Lysander and me, I still love him as much as I did when I eloped with him, and I know he loves me too.  
  
It was three years after Helena's birth when our lives began to slide down the hill to Tartarus. Hippolyta died while out hunting with her sister Penthesilea. Her death was a tragic accident, a result of an inaccurate spear throw by Penthesilea. Theseus mourned his beloved wife's death deeply, as did the rest of Athens. Hippolyta, though at first an outsider, had been loved by almost all the Athenian people. Helena and I felt her death painfully, as she had taken us under her wing at the court. Penthesilea, who was forced to take on the role of the Amazon Queen, was the worst of all of us. Her guilt and pain consumed her, and she lost all desire to live. When she went with her royal guard to the Trojan War, we all knew she did not intend to return, either to her Amazons or to her sister's adopted people.  
  
Hippolyta's funeral pyre burned brightly, just as her son's does now. Theseus gave her a funeral fit for the warrior queen she had been when he fought her, rather than the Duchess' funeral many of the Athenian aristocracy had expected him to give her. I heard him say once, after the funeral, that she should have died in battle, as befitted the Queen of the Amazons. But the fairies love to play games in the woods, he said, games played with mortal lives.  
  
Five years later, Theseus married the Cretan princess Phaedra, sister of his abandoned lover Ariadne. Athens was never a very welcoming place for foreigners, especially so for the new Duchess. We had opened our hearts to Hippolyta, and Phaedra tried to take her place rather than find a new niche for herself in the court. Of course, we all rejoiced when Phaedra bore Theseus their two sons, but it was Hippolytus who was Theseus' heir in our minds and hearts. Demetrius always thought that Phaedra resented Hippolytus for that, but I don't think so. I think she understood what she took on when she married Theseus.  
  
Hippolytus, who was only five when his mother died, grew up in his father's court. He, Danaius and Sylvius were inseperable, always playing as children, then out hunting as they grew into men. Together they took an oath to remain chaste in the worship of the goddess Artemis, although my Helena would tease Sylvius about it endlessly when he was at home. All three were fine young men, brought up to be gentlemen. I will always remember Hippolytus as the fifteen-year-old who would give me gifts of game meat an hunting trophies, and gallantly call me "Lady Hermia." He did not deserve the destruction that Phaedra brought upon him.  
  
The fall to Tartarus accelerated last year. Phaedra, now a mother, fell in love with her stepson. My woman's eyes could see the Duchess' affection. I did not think anything of it. I thought that she was merely trying to create some kind of familial bond with her stepson, even after years of all but ignoring him. I never suspected that she lusted after the boy who was almost half her age, especially when that lust could turn to incest or treason.  
  
Hippolytus, out of loyalty to his father and his goddess, refused her. He decided to leave her presence and visit Troezen with Danaius and Sylvius, most likely in the hopes that his absence would cause her passion to cool. Instead, Phaedra's love turned to anger, and she destroyed both herself and the object of her affection. She hanged herself, leaving a note that accused Hippolytus of raping her. We were all shocked by the accusation, and the death of Theseus' second wife. I could not imagine that young man ever raising an unjust hand, or breaking his vow to Artemis. Theseus, however, believed Phaedra's lies, and enacted his vengeance on his beloved son.  
  
Theseus, son of Poseidon, called on his father to destroy he who had destroyed Phaedra. We all saw him call out to the sea-god, falling on his knees before his throne after absorbing the news of Phaedra's death. It broke my heart to see him crying for justice on his dear Hippolyta's son. What would she have thought of her husband begging for her son's death?  
  
The result of Theseus' vengeance was brought back to Athens within a few hours. Sylvius and Danaius carried their friend, barely able to tell us how they had sustained their injuries. Danaius finally managed to tell us that they had been riding along the sea shore to Troezen when a great wave had shattered their chariot, throwing all of them to the ground. Hippolytus was obviously dying, while Danaius and my son had only sustained bruises and scratches.  
  
They took Hippolytus to his father, not knowing of Theseus' role in his son's death. There, Theseus confronted his son about Phaedra, and learned the truth. Theseus wept tears of remorse, but it was too late for his son. Hippolytus died in his father's arms, Theseus' tears mixing with the blood flowing from his wounds.  
  
Phaedra's funeral was almost nonexistent. Her body was burned, and her ashes were sent back to Crete. Theseus did not want her to tarnish the tomb he had prepared for himself and his wives. Instead, Hippolytus will be buried next to his mother, and Theseus himself will be buried beside his family when his time comes.  
  
But now, Hippolytus' body must be burned. I am weeping now, for Hippolytus, but also for his parents. Lysander stands beside me, his arm around my waist, comforting me. Helena has her face buried in Demetrius' shoulder. Sylvius and Danaius stand together, mourning their brother. My Helena stands beside Danaius. A small, happy thought occurs to me about them, but it will have to wait.  
  
Twenty years ago, we could have sworn we had been blessed by the fairies. They had given us children, three beautiful sons, and one daughter for Lysander and me. Perhaps with every gift must come a price, but the loss of Hippolyta and her son seems too high. Or perhaps the blessing was made with every good intention, and it was we ourselves who created this tragedy.  
  
I'm too tired for this. I may be as beautiful to Lysander as I was that night we went into the woods, but the years have taken their toll on me. I lost one of my closest friends years ago, and now I watch my son and daughter endure the same pain. But I have my children, and perhaps joy lies in wait for them. I can only hope that the blessing that was given to me does not become a curse on them.  
  
Authors Note:  
  
An epithalamion is a blessing song at the end of a play. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fairies sing an epithalamion for the three couples, blessing their unions with children.  
  
This story is, obviously, an amalgamation of A Midsummer Night's Dream with Euripides' play Hippolytus. I've kept Shakespeare's feudal system, so Theseus is a Duke, not a king, and also Shakespeare's version of the Theseus-Hippolyta romance. In mythology, Theseus never married Hippolyta, and she was killed much later by Penthesilea.  
  
Disclaimer:  
  
A Midsummer Night's Dream is by William Shakespeare.  
  
Hippolytus is by Euripides 


End file.
